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Windbruch > Столкновение миров > Reviews
Windbruch - Столкновение миров

An impressive feat. - 98%

Spatupon, December 25th, 2013

A week journey through the deepest pits of a depressed person's mind, at first might not sound very delightful for someone who has not listened to this album which is detrimental for one's happiness. Russia, during the last decade has been a cradle for the advent of surprisingly great depressive black metal bands whose only aim in life is to sadistically penetrate the listener's mind, gorging it up with hateful, depressive and all out fanatic thoughts which may not be the most beneficial for one's mental health. Insanity may override the listener of those bands and fortunately, as an avid depressive black metal fan, insanity sounds very appealing.

I'm not certain what drives those artists in creating such depressive music. Is it the grim landscapes? The lethargic coldness? The sadistic history of a medieval and modern nation? Whatever the case, those people know how subdue the listener thanks to the procreation of sad atmospheres which provide the listener with some hope but then take it away as soon as the mind approaches the objective.

The overall instrumentation in this album helps in creating an atmosphere of sadistic apathy, thanks to beautiful guitar harmonies, effects created by the keyboard of sounds we usually associate with winter, wolf-like howls which along the drums, beat the listener to the ground and send him through an ethereal journey which only those who have nothing to lose come out victorious, otherwise you're just going to be trapped into a depressive net.

One thing I enjoyed a lot while listening to this piece of art, is the shoegazey feel to the guitar work and as a big shoegaze fan, this trait appealed to me a lot. You might think that from my introduction this album just can't contain something as beautiful as a shoegaze inspired melody and you may not be completely wrong but somehow the sole artist behind this band manages to turn a shoegaze melody from a relatively happy one, to a filthy depressive one.

The production of this full-length is strong, allowing each layer of sound travel to the listener's ears quite smoothly, keeping the listener from putting any effort in trying to deduce the sound of any instrument. Don't get me wrong, this album doesn't contain the most stellar audio quality out there but it's still much better than most of its contemporaries in this scene.

One thing that I found very ironic in this album are the name of the songs which do not quite match the depressive aptitude of the music presented to us. One might get easily fooled in thinking that this album won't be something which causes similar depression like for example, bands like Happy Days and Silencer do.

The only thing which I dislike about this album is the lack of variation between songs and the last song presented to us on this album, which is a cover song by a random artist I had never heard before which didn't really impress me at all. Apart from these two things, everything was just perfect!

I recommend everyone who's into depressive and atmospheric black metal to give this album a listen. You will surely not remain disappointed, I think my review pretty much covered this fact.

High-light tracks, including: "Day II (Inhale - Exhale) ", and "Day V (She Is Forgotten) "

Interesting listening experience but not essential - 65%

NausikaDalazBlindaz, November 28th, 2013

Windbruch is a one-man depressive black metal act based in the Khanty-Mansysk province in western Siberia, which for me is about as extreme geographically as black metal can go! Headed by Iluzi Optice - hereafter referred to as IO for the sake of convenience - Windbruch play nature-themed BM and appropriately the cover art for this, the debut album, features a quiet lake surrounded by deep silent forest, the entire scene illuminated by a full moon shining through clouds.

The songs trace a narrative suggestive of a developing relationship between a man and a woman with communion and transcendence as the goal. The music features field recordings of nature along with (and sometimes alongside) steel-sharp black metal of a slow plodding nature that rarely changes from song to song. The guitars have just enough grit to justify the black metal label but on the whole the sound is clean. Drumming is adequate enough but rarely vary within individual tracks; crueler minds than mine would say it is mundane.

The music often has an experimental nature to it: in tracks like "Day III (Onslaught)", field recordings occupy as much space as the music (a mix of black metal and clean guitar) and only the introspective, meditative mood unites the fragments of music and musique concrete alike. For those who like their songs to have a definite identity, this can be maddening especially as the result can sound disjointed and lacking in energy and direction.

IO's vocals are very harsh and distant. While he might be singing actual lyrics, the remote quality of his voice, some distance back in the mix, makes it another layer of texture and mood in the music. If the slow and repetitive nature of the music doesn't impress sadness and feelings of isolation and despair upon you, the faraway vocal lamentation surely will.

Probably the one thing that holds this recording back is its fragmented nature: while there are some excellent passages of intense black metal, filled with despair and unspeakable sadness, the sometimes abrupt plunges into black voids of stillness that are punctuated by wisps of lone guitar, piano melody or ambient effects tend to wipe away any momentum that has built up so viewers can feel they're being pulled back to square one again and again within each song. Tracks don't have individual identities so the music is best heard as one over-arching patchwork of different styles. If there's anything that the fragments of music have in common, it's the overall dark mood of loneliness and introspection. For this reason, I'm hard-pressed to select a stand-out track here though "Day VI (Collision of the Worlds in Your Mind)" comes close if only because compared to the rest of the album it's an actual song that comes close to being commercial black metal rock-pop.

The album ends with a cover of Akira Yamaoka's "Theme of Laura" which is an interesting choice after what's come before: the song's rather cliched lyrics urge a more positive attitude to life. The mood of the music is at variance with the lyrics: it seems quite sullen.

Overall I'd rate this album as an interesting listening experience that demonstrates IO's potential as a musician and composer of moody and sometimes experimental music. Other than that, it's not a must-have recording. Over time, as Windbruch releases more work and IO improves as an artist, "Collision of the Worlds" will become less essential to its and IO's corpus of music except for diehard fans who must have complete musical collections.

Create Thy Worlds - 80%

Sentry, July 17th, 2012

Windbruch is a one man depressive black metal band from Nizhnevartovsk, Russia, that tends to expand it’s sound by incorporating elements of shoegaze and even post-punk.

As I stated before Windbruch does not play a very common brand of DBM, still the main aspects are there, with mid paced drumming and simple yet efficient guitar riffs but, unlike lots of DBM bands these days, I.O. (the mastermind behind this project) actually has some taste and doesn’t follow the basic structure of this so called genre. He presents consistency, as well as some unusual song structures.

On Day II, after a mid paced piece portraying it’s “depressive” potential, comes Windbruch’s diversity, an interlude that appears to portrait a man breathing hard, as he has just finished doing something very tiring. Following that, enters Windbruch’s shoegaze sound consisted of slightly happier clean picked chords and standard punk drum beats.

Day III, the longest track on the album, kicks in with a clean passage with rain pouring in the background, setting the cold autumn - mid winter atmosphere. More shoegazing elements are present, dueling guitar leads blending surprisingly well with the dark melancholic chords. Some may complain about I.O. inconsistent song writing, as well as his vision upon the album (which we’ll get on to immediately) but should we forget about what we are listening to? This isn’t some progressive metal band portraying a simple landscape with over 3450 riffs. Simple music relies on the listeners imagination, the ability to portrait it’s own vision on what the artist is trying to accomplish.

The main problem about this album (for all the little minded listeners) may as well be that it doesn’t know what it wants to be. Not even I.O. knows what he wrote about, the booklet consists of pictures of a mid autumn / early winter landscapes (probably where we heard that man running on Day II ) and on the back of it we can find a quotation by I.O. himself stating : “What is it about? I do not know, but something prompted me to create it. The story is about a person who is trying to capture his visions and fulfill his dreams, which in the beginning were unimaginable, in the end become reality”, it seems like I.O.’s whole concept of the album is based on the Christian theory of creation ( “For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it. - (Exodus 20:11)” ) from it’s beginnings, “with the sunrise”, to the Creator’s day off getting back through the stairway to Heaven. I.O. portraits in a mere 50 minutes the journey of a man, which became the Creator, materializing his dreams and visions into reality.

For what it strives to be, “Collision of the Worlds” is quite a decent release, with a surprising good production and a interesting concept, that’ll surely give you some thinking about your own dreams and the possibility of fulfilling them.

The Confusing Collision of the Worlds. - 60%

Perplexed_Sjel, February 6th, 2010

To embrace adventure is to become daring and with the increase in popularity of a genre, or sub-genre, this forces musicians who wish to break the mould to become more daring in what they attempt to do and, unfortunately, this doesn’t always pay off. It isn’t unheard of for bands to take a few attempts at creating the “perfect” full-length after a string un uninspired releases. On the basis of this debut record, entitled ‘Collisions of the Worlds’, this is precisely what it might take for Windbruch, a Russian one-man depressive black metal band, to become a force and to have an admired impact on the rest of the scene. For me, though I do admire the attempt at doing something different from the standard, this debut is far too disjointed for me to allow it an admission onto the list of definitive records within this sub-genre. Considering the competition, Windbruch’s main man, named I.O., will need to take a few steps to stop the potential rot that might set in where these disjointed elements play too forceful a part in the records make-up.

I.O. is a resourceful character, relying on an unpolished skill of being an adventurer when it comes to gracefully switching between sub-genres in black metal. From an atmospheric standpoint, to one of a traditionally bleak depressive viewpoint, I.O. likes to vary the direction of which his sound is headed in and with this comes a dangerous sense of tempting fate. By adhering to one or more sub-genres like this, I.O. is pushing himself and the limits to which he can stretch the influences behind this band. The record, for example, uses far too many clichéd samples of falling rain in order to impact upon the atmosphere and enhance it. I feel if he had kept to focusing on the instrumentation and not on the samples, this record would have progressed on towards a far brighter conclusion, rather than leaving me sitting on the fence. After the pointless introductory song, this argument is felt in full force when ‘Day II (Inhale - Exhale) comes about.

There seems to be some sort of concept behind the record, though this is never explained. Given the nature of the song titles which, bar the final song (which is a cover of a Akira Yamaoka song), there seems to be a familiar pattern occurring and I.O. is apparently allowing us to see his vision of life. Again, given the nature of the song titles when translated into English (as they’re originally in his native language - Russian), it would appear that I.O. is expressing the motions during the breakdown of a social relationship with a member of the opposite sex, though I could be wrong. It’s not unlike depressive black metal bands to have lyrical themes which describe the exhausting, tumultuous nature of a breakdown in communications with a partner. A number of bands have chosen to write about their feelings regarding the departure of a loved one and, unfortunately, this type of lyrical theme isn’t looked down upon too kindly by the public eye. In fact, artists are often ridiculed for being far too publicly emotional.

Of course, this is an assumption on my part, but there definitely seems to be a theme within the lyrics, whatever they may be, going by the song titles. The music itself is hardly any different to what one would normally expect to hear on a venture like this, though I.O. has an annoying habit of focusing far too much on those bloody samples! As I said earlier, take the second song as an example of this. He builds momentum with an achingly beautiful guitar lead after an overused sample brings introduces us into his world, but after a few minutes of successful riffs and generating a moody atmosphere with which we can revel in, he stamps on the atmosphere, causing it to flatten out with the use of silly samples. Using them far too often just isn’t practical. It ruins the mood and can set a song back a few minutes if they take over the entire song, which is the case in relation to songs like ‘Day II (Inhale - Exhale)’. Despite this of course, I.O. does have the strength to reign supreme within this sub-genre because he has a knack for writing superb song structures with expressive juxtaposed ideas like bleak rasping vocals that depict despair and pain, and a soothing bass section which sounds all mighty over the clean production style.

A lot of the record seems to be far too experimental, which is an odd feeling considering the repetitious center and familiar feeling I get from the music, having heard this clean approach being done before. I.O. seems to enjoy his instrumental songs, of which a few are introduced into the fray. Emotionally, for me, they have little impact. It detracts from the “true” songs of the record whereby I.O. performs his piercing vocal work and distortion driven work. Even more confusing than this is the fact that a few new influences are felt in the final few songs, whereby I.O. tends to move towards the new popular way of expressing oneself - post-rock/shoegaze inspired black metal, where the roots take a less punishing way of chipping at the listeners heart strings. The experimentation, as you might be able to tell, takes place in far too odd a fashion for it to feel warranted, or needed within the grand scheme of things. Those last two songs, in particular, have no real place on the record, given what has come before it. They stand out like a sore thumb and in doing so, again undo a lot of the good work that happens before it, making this truly a world where a lot of unfortunate collisions occur. A very uneven debut, but does show signs of potential.